Much more value

     Lately, I've been thinking a lot about worth...my worth.  It's complicated and messy and not easy to settle.  I've been wrestling with it on and off for years.  Through my current wrestling, I've also been asking God to show me lies I've believed to be true and what actual truth replaces them.  It's been rough.

     One lie I've held for as long as I can remember is this: my value is my body...more specifically my value is in what my body can offer men.  It's a lie that was repeatedly thrust into me for years when I was a child.  I never gave my body over to any man, but perpetrators never need your permission.  My coach just took what he wanted of my body which just cemented the lie further into my soul each time.

     I never even knew it was a lie or had a conscious thought that my worth was in what my body could give men, but it was set firm into my very core.  Years and years and it's no surprise I brought that lie into my marriage.  Coupled with horrific counsel before marriage, I was set up to see my husband through that lens as well, and it had nothing to do with how he treated me.  I had no other lens to look through.  My husband is an incredible man who I am so grateful for.

     When a lie roots itself so deep and thrives for decades, it's not so easy to believe the truth.  In fact, it's hard to find the truth at all to even have a starting point.  Yet God is faithful.  I've been praying, seeking, asking Him to help me recognize the lies, see the truth, and learn to believe what's true.  Some are easier than others to fight against, but this one...this one is one of the most insidious, weaving itself into every part of my soul.  Today, though, He showed me.  He showed me truth.

     My church is currently going through the book of Revelation.  I wasn't sure what to expect when we started, but it's been so good. God has used it in ways I never would have expected.  Today, the pastor was working through Revelation 11.  In talking about the suffering of the saints, he went to Matthew 10:28-31.

And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.  Are not two sparrows sold for a penny?  And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father.  But even the hairs of your head are all numbered.  Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.

     The pastor went on to talk about these verses.  Other people can spit on us, insult us, harm us, even kill our physical bodies, but Jesus says we are of more value than just our body.  Yes, our bodies are important.  What happens to us that impacts them matters, but what happens to our bodies can never devalue our souls.  We are more than just a body.  Our bodies have value but much more, our souls.  Bodies are temporary, but our souls are eternal.

     What was done to my body, all the ways my coach violated it, does not have a say in my value before God.  My value doesn't rest in what my body can do for another.  Jesus testified I am of much more value than just a body.  I am a body with a soul inside, and my coach never had the power to take away the value of my soul, of who I am in Christ.

     God intimately cares for the sparrows and knows them fully, yet how much more He cares for me and knows me even to the number of hairs on my head.  I am more than my body.  I am more than what my body can offer.  I am a beloved daughter, a soul of much more value than I can grasp.

     This truth, I know it in my head.  Now it will take time to sink deep into my soul, to uproot the lies so tangled into all the parts of me, and to learn how to live out of what is true rather than the lie I have believed for far too many years.  That is hard and holy work, but He is faithful through it.  You too, beloved sister, are not the sum of your body.  You are of much more value than that.  

A song on repeat

     Recently, my family went on vacation.  We spent a lot of time driving through areas without radio on our way to various places.  When we'd hit a bigger city, we would scan through to see if there was anything we liked.  Often the cities, even the big ones, were pretty small and nothing was of interest.  However, near one city, we had a radio station come in just long enough to play one song in it's entirety.  I've had it on repeat ever since.  Listen before you continue reading.

     It's such an incredibly beautiful song, and it so perfectly puts words to the cry of my heart in my current season of healing.  Can you hear, in the lyrics, the tension where the lies rooted deep collide with radical truth?  That's how it is though.  Lies, somewhere along the way, get so deeply rooted in our hearts that when truth is spoken we think it can't possibly be as is true.  There must be a catch.  We want to believe what is true, what our Creator says about us, but those lies put up a fight, don't they.

     My favorite line is this...

"What if I traded this shame and self-hatred for a chance at believing You?"

     I feel so much shame.  I don't remember what it is like not to.  Self-hatred?  Well, there's too much there to dive into here.  I struggle profoundly with both.  Ellie Holcomb's words are so tender here.  Most women (and I'm sure men too) know shame and self-hatred.  You don't need to experience abuse to experience those feelings.  

     In my case, those feelings stem from what I endured at the hands of another, though.  When abuse quite literally pounds shame into you, and you hate yourself for oh so many reasons that seem to only make sense in the mixed up mind of a person trying to survive, believe God really does feel like taking a chance.  It's a tremendous and scary step of faith.  It's a daily reciting to yourself what God says, sometimes every moment, and deciding to land on the peg of what He says when everything in you is screaming it cannot be true because just look in the mirror.  Look at what you were part of.  

     On good days, you can quiet the scream of shame and self-hatred.  On bad days, you just try to keep breathing.  On most days, you know taking the chance is worth it, but you have to keep reminding yourself of that in the midst of overwhelming fear as you step out in faith despite the lies running through your head still.

     But there is this...

You search me and know me 

You know what I sit when I rise

So You must know the choices I've made

And the pain that I hide 

     He knows.  He really knows.  That never stops Him from declaring me wonderfully made.  So I cry out in prayer...

Help me believe it

Help me to see me 

Just like You see me 

Just like You made me 

Wonderfully made

The weight of worth

The Weight of Worth

I saw you field another question today

It's fine, it doesn't matter you replied

I see through the walls around your heart

I know the lies you've held tight to survive

I also know when you say "it"

You actually mean you don't matter

Since believing them when they say you're worthless

Makes the weight of abuse easier to bear

Beloved child, the danger's now gone

The lies will only keep you bound

Though I know the depths of pain it will bring

The truth is also where freedom is found

I created you in your mother's womb

With My very hands I knit you together

I marked you with My fingerprint

The seal of your worth forever

Every adult who kept secrets hidden

Leading you as a lamb to the slaughter

Though they tried every way they knew how

They could not break My seal on you, daughter

I know the one who depended on lies

The man who stripped you and shredded your soul

I see the wounds left deep under the surface

Those marks take the heaviest toll

With every cut he thought he removed

My fingerprint off of your person

But no one has the power, not even him

To strip you of the worth I have given

Every time he looked past the mark of your Maker

With every single wound that you bear

My holy heart breaks and I weep with grief

Yet remember your worth isn't found there

It is found in Me, the Worthy One

Who hung on a criminal's cross

Naked and clothed in shame for you
I know personally the depths of your loss

Yet I conquered the shame others heaped on Me

When they said I didn't matter

I rose victorious and now sit with you

Telling you truth and making lies scatter

You matter to me and you always have

I made you and guarantee your worth

You never deserved what they did to you

But I will bring redemption forth

Now quiet your heart and let the truth sink deep

I will stay close by your side

I'll hold you with the same hands that knit you together

As the weight of your worth overflows your eyes

On worth

Worth.  Value.  Goodness those are loaded words for an abuse survivor.  I've wrestled with them and all that's attached to them for more years than I can remember...and I still wrestle--hard. 

To someone outside my story, my worth and value must appear cut and dry, and my wrestling with it, unnecessary and hard to understand.  

I'm not alone in my wrestling, though, among others who have experienced similar traumas.  We may all have different reasons behind it, but I don't know of any survivor that hasn't wrestled hard with her worth.  So I want to take some time to explain my wrestling.  

I pray that whoever reading who has a story like mine will know they are not alone and not weird.  I pray that whoever reading who does not have a story like mine but surely knows someone who does will understand their friend better and be better able to support and walk alongside them.

If I were to put anyone else in my place in my exact same story, I would declare their worth, declare they never deserved what they went through, grieve over what was taken from them.  Yet, when I look at my story, I am certain I deserved it.  I'm convinced that there is something less in me that made me not worth protecting.  I hear again and again that we are all image bearers, made in God's image to reflect Him.  I believe that for everyone else, but then I don't see how that makes any difference for me.  

You see, one of the deeply ingrained ways I coped with what was going on was to minimize everything.  If you talk to me long enough, you'll hear it.  I make it smaller.  I can handle it that way.  It hurts less when it isn't that big of a deal.  I can protect those around me when it's small enough for me to handle, at least that's how it seems to me.

How could I make something so horrific so small, you might ask?  I reduce my worth.  I see myself as less valuable than everyone else.  I convince myself I deserved it because somehow I image-bear the wrong way.  I see myself as the problem, the defective one.  I own that I wasn't worthy like all the other kids were.

You see, if I have just as much worth and value simply for being made in the image of God just like the rest of humanity, it makes the reality of how I was treated too big to make small.  

To believe I have worth yet look back and see the adults at USAG with all the power at their disposal hear warnings of the dangers of the man who would later abuse me yet ignore it all, hide the warnings in a secret file, and renew his membership in good standing...

To believe I have value yet look back and remember all the horrifying details of what my coach did and how many people he manipulated in order to do it...

To believe I am an image-bearer which comes with inherent dignity and value and worth and see how adults meant to protect and care for me just trampled over it all...

It makes it too big, too heavy, too real.  I can't minimize that.  I can't lessen that pain or grasp that level of violation.  That reality brings tears I can't hold back, and that makes a mess I can't keep from hurting those around me.

When I wrestle with my worth, I'm wrestling with decades of coping the only way I knew how, coping that let me live and blend in so much so that almost no one knew my secret.  I'm wrestling with decades of hurt I have done everything possible not to feel, and I'm desperately trying to not hurt those around me with the wounds inflicted on me.  

When I wrestle with my worth, I'm wrestling with a good God in the face of unspeakable evil.  This good God isn't afraid to wrestle either.  Jacob wrestled with God centuries before I found myself in the same place, and just like Jacob, I'm sure to walk away with a limp.  Abuse has a way of doing that.

So when I or another survivor friend of yours winces at the reminder of her worth, of her image-bearer-ness, of her value, remember she's wrestling something much too large for mere words.  Remind her of her worth, that isn't wrong or bad, but even more than that, wrestle with her in prayer.  You may leave limping too, but it will be tangible evidence you really do believe she's worthy.  

It's been too long

     It's been almost 2 years since I last wrote here.  The work has been deep and hard.  Life has had big events, and a break was necessary.  Yet out of all that has taken place during my hiatus, I find myself wanting to write again.  This time, though, my world has expanded.

     My family grew via adoption last year, and that has me on the other side of trauma.  There is no such thing as adoption without trauma, and while I don't know all that my little one endured during her earliest years, I know she's experienced various forms of trauma.  That's put me on the caretaker side as well as on the healing side.  My daughter has taught me so much about facing hard things.

     So as I pick this up again, there are some changes.  First, along with changing up the look a bit, I have renamed the blog.  It was My Voice My Story Redeemed.  However, all of our stories are intertwined with the stories of others.  Mine is no different.  Sharing my story will touch the stories of those around me.  I am not alone in this, and I never was.  I just couldn't see that before.

     This is still my voice, being redeemed, as God redeems my story and the stories of those around me.  I'm still watching Him make beauty from the ashes of abuse, but I'm watching Him redeem more than just my story.  The title doesn't quite fit.  But one thing I've learned is that He makes mosaics out of our ashes.  He makes them from everyone's stories.  So here, as I write, I'm offering you hope as you watch Him make mosaics.  For a bit more understanding, you can read this post.  I can put those thoughts into better words now, but I want the original words to stand.  I wrote those almost 4 years ago.  Now "mosaic" is tattooed on my wrist.  Making Mosaics is God's redemptive work in all of us.

     Second, the focus will be broadened.  God is teaching me in so many ways that I never anticipated.  I've seen how trauma, no matter what kind, unites those who walk this road.  In my own family, we have multiple people healing from multiple kinds of traumas.  God shows up in all of it, and He is growing me.  The focus will expand to abuse, adoption, trauma in general...all ashes God sees, picks up, cleans, and makes beautiful mosaics out of.  My world has expanded, so the blog will follow.

     Third, and lastly, while I will keep the names of other people (my family included) private and will not share pictures here for the sake of privacy, I am no longer keeping myself private.  When I started this blog, I was ready to be heard.  Now, I am ready to be seen too.  My story isn't private at all anymore, but I have still tried to hide as best I could.  However, I don't want to keep hiding.  My story is known on a national level to some extent.  Though shame sticks and smothers still, I am taking one small step to take away it's control.  So...

Hi.  My name is Kelly.  I survived childhood sexual abuse at the hands of my gymnastics coach.  Now God is redeeming these ashes and making me a new mosaic.  I pray you find hope here in the midst of whatever hard you are walking, because we all have our own hard.

Forgetfulness and the God who remembers

     Many days, I live a relatively normal life.  The work that I'm doing, that God is doing, in facing and healing my past goes on but doesn't dictate my daily activities.  I still wake up and keep up with all that I am responsible for in my house with my family.  It's always there, but life moves along okay.

     Other days, trauma takes over.  I don't always know what triggers it, but the past comes too close to the present.  Memories mingle with reality.  It takes all the effort I can expend to breathe and stay as much in the present as I can.

     On those days, the ones where what's been done looms over me like a threat, I struggle to remember anything.  I try so hard, but my mind is so busy trying to keep the past in the past and my lungs remembering to breathe that it just doesn't have the capacity to remember much else.

     I can't keep up a conversation.  I will be focusing as hard as I can, but when it's my turn to speak, my mind goes blank.  The words spoken just moments ago escape me, and I must ask the other person to repeat themselves.  I'll be asked if I can get something nearby for someone, but as soon as I walk across the room, I no longer can remember what I was getting.

     On trauma days, it takes so much work just to breathe, just to stay in today, that my mind cannot keep up with anything else.  The daily to do list goes undone, and by bed time, I've accomplished nothing more than being alive.  In fact, I can't even remember what I did that day at all.  It's frustrating and disheartening.  When I forget everything, I feel forgotten myself.

     Yet Psalm 56:8 says

"You have taken account of my wanderings; put my tears in Your bottle.  Are they not in Your book?" (NASB)

     I came across that verse while studying something else, completely unrelated actually.  However, when I read C. H. Spurgeon's notes on this verse, it brought to mind trauma days, and yet it brought comfort too.  When speaking of this verse, of God taking account of David's wanderings, Spurgeon noted this,

"We perhaps are so confused after a long course of trouble, that we hardly know where we have or where we have not been; but the omniscient and considerate Father of our spirits remembers all in detail."

     Yes, those trauma days leave me hardly knowing where I have or have not been, yet my Abba Father remembers in detail everything I forget.  Though in days of forgetfulness I feel forgotten, I am anything but.  I am still known, deeply, and I am loved all the more.  What great comfort to know that when I forget, God remembers.

     Dear one, you well acquainted with trauma days and forgetfulness, you are not forgotten.  Every step trauma steals, every moment trauma misplaces, every conversation trauma conceals, He remembers them all.  His care and compassion see everything trauma takes.  He remembers, and He loves.

Glimpses of redemption

     As a culture, I think we tend to romanticize redemption.  It's painted for us as laughter and smiles, sunshine and rainbows.  It's a happy ending that eclipses any hint of hard during the journey.  I find this view of redemption to be quite shallow and short sighted though.  I am not saying redemption doesn't have a happy ending or laughter and smiles or sunshine and rainbows.  Those beautiful expressions have a place in redemption for sure, but if that is all you look for to spot redemption, you are going to miss most of it.

     You see, redemption is surrounded by what's broken and painful and dark.  In fact, redemption is born out of what is broken and painful and dark.  Before the laughter and smiles, there are tears and downcast faces.  Before the sunshine and rainbows, there is darkness and rain.  And if I'm being really honest, redemption doesn't always have a happy ending regardless.  

     So if redemption is more than the happy ending, where do you look to see it?  There is hope in redemption after all, even when redemption is happening in the hard places.  

--in the rain that falls as tears from my eyes that at one time forgot how to cry

--in the shelter of a hug that doesn't leave my skin screaming in pain while the storm rages on around me

--in the brief flash of eye contact with someone who knows too much yet still cares for me deeply

--in speaking, for the first time, a word that exposes cuts so deep it sucks the breath out of my lungs

--in emotions I once only read about but find myself feeling and experiencing, often times confused and scared by the unfamiliarity of them but making the hard choice to keep feeling anyways

     Sometimes, redemption can only be seen in the rear view mirror.  I caught a glimpse of redemption this way recently.  As I looked back on my disclosure three years ago to a pastor who put together a conference for churches dealing with child sexual abuse, something I could not wrap my mind around.  I had so many questions for him, mainly looking for ulterior motives.  I disclosed, and he responded in a way I never even considered an option.  He believed me.  He repeatedly assured me it wasn't my fault, and I would not get in trouble for what happened and how it impacted me.  At the time, I struggled to believe anything he said.  I kept asking him the same questions over and over, and he patiently continued to assure me the answers had not changed.  It was a hard season.  It was messy and full of doubt, hesitation, push back.  

     Yet here I am now, three years later, and I see the redemption in that mess.  His response, believing me and assuring me again and again it wasn't my fault and I wasn't in trouble, was God's redeeming grace poured out on all my failed disclosures of the past.  The disclosures met with disbelief and blaming me stole from me what little voice I had and took my disclosure from me.  Then three years ago, I disclosed once more and was met with a radically different response.  I could hardly whisper from the safety of my keyboard over email, but he heard me and listened.  His response gave me back my disclosure and a small part of my voice.  I couldn't see it then.  I didn't make it easy for him, but he was patient.  It took me years to believe what he said was true, but in the struggles of that summer, the doubt, the mess, redemption was being brought about...now clearly visible in the rear view mirror.

     I invite you now to expand your view of redemption, to look into the storm and see redemption happening in the dark places.  The sunshine and rainbows only illuminate the redemption that came to life in the rain and tears and hard road already traveled.  So in the middle of the broken, the hard, the storms, the mess, know that redemption is happening if you'll only take the time to look.  Redemption is messy, because the broken things that need redemption are messy.  Please look beyond the happy ending and the smiles.  You might be surprised how much redemption you find in the tears.